


Operation: Seduce Q

by DarkJediQueen



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Q is a Holmes, Skyfall Never Happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:48:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29105112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen
Summary: Bond knew that his mission was going to be hard. He just didn't expect that the hardest part would be not telling his mark that he wasn't who he was pretending to be. He also didn't expect to actually fall for his mark. Q should have been just another mark but he wasn't.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 14
Kudos: 126
Collections: 00Q Prompt Party!





	Operation: Seduce Q

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [dragonmage27](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonmage27/pseuds/dragonmage27) in the [00QPrompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/00QPrompts) collection. 



> **Year** : 2012  
>  **Spoilers** : Up Through Skyfall  
>  **Notes** : Skyfall and Silva never happen in this. Instead James is coming back to England after a long term off the books undercover mission in the US.   
> **Beta** : ScarsLikeVelvet

James Bond watched his target as the young man moved around the tea shop. He was thin, but it wasn't thinness of striving to be the perfect body size but more that he was lithe on his own. Which added to what James knew was a habit of not eating enough every day. The young man wasn't poor, but he was busy, and with busyness was the habit of forgetting to eat. James had the man's entire file back in his new flat. Hidden in an alcove that had been built into the flat, hence why it was on the list of places for Double-Oh agents to live in. Alec had an underground flat. Partly because he wanted to stay there, the other was that it had a smaller chance of burning as its walls were stone from the foundation. Alec had got back to London six months before James, and he had ended up needing Q-Branch's help, which was why James had his current mission. James was unknown to this man as his file had been marked need to know, and only M had access.

Two hours after arriving back in London a month before, James had been apprehended by Alec and Tanner. M had wanted to meet, away from MI6, for a mission. James had been tasked to seduce the new Quartermaster and figure out exactly where his loyalties were. James hadn't figured out why he was being tasked with it until he had started to read the paper files given to him. If it existed inside of MI6, the Quartermaster knew of it. All of the Double-Oh's files when he had taken over had been open to his purview. There had been two Double-Oh's who hadn't been listed anywhere digitally with MI6, just in case, as they were on sensitive missions. James Bond and Alec Trevelyan. Alec had ended up needing help with the mission, so the Quartermaster had been read in on Alec's mission, so when James' mission finally ended, M had wanted to make sure that Bond didn't waltz into MI6.

A month later, James was firmly entrenched under his own name, but an entire background had been created for him as a retired Navy man who now took odd jobs the world over to fix things. He had no clue how M had gotten a background created for him without tipping off the Quartermaster, but James went with what he was told. His job would hopefully keep him from going insane. Tanner connected him, and M. A former MI5 agent, played his go-to between his jobs and him and Tanner when he was gone on his little mission. Tanner would find jobs in MI6's best interest of Bond being the one to take them, and Bond would. He had just got back from a short job in the Cayman Islands. He had already given Angel everything, and she had just left him in the tea shop.

James was as ready as he was ever going to get, and meeting in the tea shop had given him time to be known to Q, or at least he hoped so. The man's ability to focus on his laptop was quite interesting as James was sure that the place could be robbed, and Q would not know it.

Q was moving around again to get another refill of water on his teapot. The lady who ran the shop at the moment smiled at Q and flirted, but Q's head was elsewhere. Probably full of coding. James stood up from his seat, grabbed his cup of coffee from the table, and moved to Q's table, taking a seat. Q turned around with his pot and stared at James. James kept his eyes on his phone, using a mirror to keep an eye on Q as the young man stared at him. James smiled to himself when Q made up his mind on what he was going to do.

"Excuse me, but this is my table; kindly go back to yours," Q said as he sat down and opened up the lid on his laptop again. He started to type after he slipped a tea cozy over the pot.

"You are working entirely too hard for an early Saturday morning." James watched as Q's fingers hesitated over his keyboard for just a few seconds. No one else would have ever caught it, but James was trained to.

"Why do you care?" Q's tone was hesitant but forceful. He wasn't used to this, it seemed.

"I saw you in here two weeks ago. You spent three hours working, ignoring everyone around you." James kept his tone interested so he would hopefully keep Q from actually calling MI6 on him. That would blow the mission, and things would not go well for James. He would be in Siberia for a long time, and he knew it. James hated Siberia a great deal, and so he really didn't want to end up there.

"And that gives you the impression that I want you to bother me?" Q asked. He did not look up from his laptop, and his finger resumed their dance over the keyboard.

"No, I'm doing that because you intrigue me."

"I intrigue you?" Q asked as he set his hands down on the table. He turned in his seat to face James, looking him up and down. James knew what he looked like in a suit, but suits were nameless and faceless. There were a lot of people on the streets who wore suits. Rushing about to and from while working. James had chosen not to wear suits while talking with Q. He was in jeans and a thick, plush sweater, and he knew what he looked like in it. There was the bare hint of the widening of Q's eyes as he actually looked at James and took him in.

When Q had filled out his paperwork for MI6, he had written down gay for his sexuality in the questionnaire about weak points. When James had read over the questionnaire, he wanted to know exactly how someone as young as the Quartermaster had known every one of his weak points and even told MI6 the best way to exploit himself. It was part of what made M suspicious of the fact that Q stated that he wasn't prone to pillow talk. That was James' goal. To seduce Q and get him to tell James everything. James didn't like to lose. He wasn't going to lose to a lithe wisp of a man who played with computers all day. James has respect for those who work that kind of job. James couldn't stay still like that, but the brains of the people who work in Q-Branch had always awed him. He knew that he was smart, and he picked up what was needed to get his job done.

"You do. I like intelligence."

"And you can tell by me sitting here at a computer for hours that I am intelligent?" Q asked. He looked at James like James was stupid.

"You aren't writing a book. The combination of keys you are pressing doesn't do well for writing a story unless you are writing in code. I would say you are a computer programmer." James leaned forward in his chair and laid his hand on Q's knee. His fingers were brushing up towards the interior of his thigh. The click of a pen signaled that Q was moving. James felt it bite into the skin of his wrist. He almost jerked it away but chose to keep his hand there. The first reaction would have ended the operation. He normally would have grabbed and broken the hand that had tried to stab him with a pen. Well, Q had actually succeeded in stabbing him with it, but there was no damage; there was just pain.

"And you, James Bond, are watching too closely. Why are you here?" Q's eyes were watching James' face for anything that would give away what he was thinking.

James thought for a few seconds that he had been made. He didn't move his eyes away from the young man, though; he just stared. Q didn't look away, but he pulled the pen away from James' wrist after a moment. He smiled at James before leaning forward. James wasn't sure what he was doing, so he stayed still. Q leaned all the way forward and into James' personal space. James didn't back away, even as what Q was going to do became obvious. The kiss was quick but just on the edge of not chaste enough of public, but it did what Q wanted. James pressed into the kiss, showing his want of it. James had seduced men before; all walks of sexuality held information that James needed. When James was home, he preferred his league of married women who were bored with their husbands to someone who would want something more. As marriage between same-sex couples was getting more and more prominent, James might have to try and add a few men to his little black book. He preferred sex with males, but his job at MI6 had him using sex as a weapon more than anything else, and he was burned out on seduction. There were also very few cases where he would be able to keep a relationship with a normal person. They would never be read into what James really did inside of MI6, so the secrets were bound to get to his partner. There was no one inside of MI6 that intrigued him enough either.

"Hmm. Maybe you are truthful that you want to fuck me. Dinner tonight at Masala Zone." Q looked proud as a peacock about figuring James out.

"Which one?"

"I'm sure between you and Angel, you'll figure out where I live and be there at seven." Q packed his laptop up and stood. He took the tea to the front counter, and the lady there handed him a to-go cup. Q transferred the tea to it and handed over the pot before returning to the table and grabbed his computer bag. He leaned down, bracing an arm on James' thigh and getting close enough that his breath ghosted over James' ear. "If you don't, you aren't worth my time."

Q was gone before James could even come up with a retort to that. James pulled his phone from his pocket and texted Angel. He had to find where Q was actually living. The house that he had down as his address was empty. Q went to it twice a week but never stayed long before he left again. No tail that followed him ever got farther than that. There were two other houses that Q did it with. He had listed all three as his addresses. Being the best hacker in the world meant that one had many people who tried to find them. The first flat was in Bayswater, the second in Islington, and the third in Camden, all locations that had a Masala Zone. There was another on the fourth floor of Selfridges Kitchen Food Court, and one in Soho, Earls Court, and Covent Garden. None of the other four locations had any link with Q at all.

James sat in the seat as he hadn't heard from Angel, and she was usually quicker. James settled in for the long term, drinking his cooling coffee and waiting. Q was off for the day, having worked for two weeks straight with mission after mission going wrong for three Double-Oh's in a row. If things went well inside of MI6, Q would have the next three days off after leaving that morning after a nap in his office before finishing off paperwork and leaving.

Angel texted James half an hour later that she had lost him in Bayswater. James sighed and drained his cup of coffee and laid down a tip before leaving. He had a lot of work to do and only a few hours to do it. He had to find Q before he lost him. M would have his bollocks for garters if he did. James was happy to have something to do that would give his brain a little exercise. Normally, he would have tried to get into Q's pants in the tea shop's bathroom, but this was meant to be a long-term mission, and that meant that he had to take things carefully, get Q's trust, and his love before doing anything else.

* * *

Soho wasn't the place that James would have ever pegged the Quartermaster for MI6 to live at. Especially not in the flat above a sex shop. James only saw him in the window of the flat by accident. He had been looking around the districts that held a Masala Zone to try and find him while Angel had worked online to do the same. He had looked up at a squeaking pigeon and saw Q's lithe form standing at a window, half-naked.

James found Q with an hour to spare before needing to be at Masala. He had already changed into what he was going to wear out to dinner, and so instead of going back to his own Marylebone flat, James had hung out across the street from Masala Zone to hopefully catch Q entering. At five minutes until the reservation, James slipped out of the dark doorway he had been hanging in, snubbed out his cigarette, and crossed the street. The Maître d' at the door smiled at James as he entered.

"Reservation under Q?" James asked.

"I'm sorry, I don't have a reservation under that name. Maybe it's at one of the other locations."

James frowned. He tried to wrack his brain, but Q never used anything but Q. As he was a quirky computer technician on paper for his fake job for MI6, it was easy to understand. Q was also stroppy and a wicked young man mentally. His laptop that he had been playing around on while at the tea shop had a large Q plastered on it. It was the Scrabble tile as it had the tiny number. James had seen where he had used it for years and years before joining MI6 and had been quite happy with the nickname that came with his job title since many Double-Ohs were more apt to call him Q than Quartermaster. The previous Q had hated it, and it had just made them do it all the more.

"How about under Bond?" James asked.

"Ah, yes, Mister Bond. Your partner is already here."

The Maître d' led James to a back corner seat. Q was already seated at the table with his back to the room. Leaving James the seat that could see everything in the restaurant. James took that seat and smiled at Q. Q had a glass of wine in front of him, and it was half gone.

"Do you routinely watch from a dark doorway?"

"I told you that you intrigue me. I like to take my time with things that intrigue me."

"You did look all dark and handsome in that doorway. So James, how did you like my sneak peek?" Q was grinning at him unashamedly.

"What?" James didn't like being off-kilter, and at the moment, Q had him very much off-kilter. He snagged the glass of water and took a sip.

"I watched you moving around in Soho from my rooftop. I took pity on you. What you heard wasn't a live pigeon. It was a recording that I've used in my job before. It drew your eyes up at the right time. You had spent an hour wandering around Soho to find me. I felt you had done enough work to deem you worthy. Your Angel, though, was a little pedestrian. You might want to train her up a bit in tailing people."

"Worthy? I feel like I should be talking to your father." James wasn't sure what the family situation was like. He kept his nose out of that so that he didn't fuck up and say something that would tip Q off that he knew more than he should. Q's picture, when searched, gave up nothing. His real name was locked behind walls that even M wasn't willing to give to James. He had gone by Q for so long that it had been nothing for him to slip into the fake name that had been attached to him to work for MI6 and protect him from foreign people trying to take him.

"My father would be happy with anyone that I brought home. My older brothers, on the other hand, are the scary ones. So, James, you are a modern-day Simon Templar. Fixing things that go wrong world wide that do not fall under government purview. That intrigues me."

"Then, we must be destined."

"You don't believe in destiny, James, so don't even try that." Q's eyebrow raised as he lifted the glass of wine to take a sip. It was a small sip, so James wondered how long Q had been there to drink as much as he had or if he had drained that first half of the glass quickly due to nerves. James had no information on past romances that Q had. There was none listed. James didn't figure that Q hadn't been without sex, but sex and a relationship were not the same things.

"You know a lot about me." James was trying for casual, but there was a hint of fear in there as well. James had no clue how deep Q had dug into him so far. It was supposed to stand up to his searching, but James had no trust for those who built his identity since he had no clue who had done it.

"You called me a computer programmer. I'm thorough in what I do and what I do is whatever is needed for me to by my employers. When things intrigue me, I look into them. That's what I did this afternoon. I looked up everything about you. A simple face search gave me your name before. When you had met with Angel weeks ago and then stared at me for nearly two hours while you read a book and sipped at coffee that you got from a tea shop." The tone for the last few words told James what Q thought about James getting coffee from a tea shop. It was all a careful dance. Q liked tea as much as he liked programming. James had been shown his tea stash at MI6, picture of course. James would allow Q to teach him all about tea as part of his seduction.

"I've never met someone who has done so much to learn about me before our first date." James snagged the napkin at his place and draped it over his lap as he relaxed back into his chair and crossed one leg over the other. He was going for calm, but it was very much a fake it until you make it type deal.

"One can't be too careful."

James nodded his head. At least the job he did have meant that he would get away with being paranoid with Q. He just hoped that Q didn't keep him at arm's length for long. He wanted to be able to close this as fast as possible. He knew about taking his time, though, when needed. He would rather take a long time than to mess it up.

"So, what do you like here?" James asked.

Q discussed the meals he had tried and the ones that he hated just on principal. James found that his tastes were varied and nothing like what James would have picked for him. He would have to up his game for the food seduction parts. He had to learn how to cook a few new dishes. Despite no real evidence of leaving London, really, Q's tastes were nowhere near the standard that James had in his profiles for Londoners.

"What are you going to get?" Q asked.

James named the dish, and he saw the look of interest in Q's eyes. It was a dish that Q had not mentioned but was one that Q had eaten everything else from that category.

"Do you mind if I try it?" Q asked.

"Don't mind at all," James said.

The meal was easy going, and James found himself enjoying himself despite being on the job. Most meals like this when he was a honey trap were not this fun. Q had a bit of wit that matched well with James', and it was less of a hardship to stay talking to him than most.

Dessert lingered, and it was only when Q yawned once that James realized the time and that they needed to be heading out. James snagged the check just as soon as the waitress laid it down, and Q just raised an eyebrow at him.

"I got a nice bonus from my last job; let me treat you." James smiled at Q as he said it, and Q nodded his head. James worked out a good tip for the staff in apologizing for taking the table a lot longer than people normally would and handed it to her. James dealt in cash, for the most part, with this identity. He did have a Visa Black card and would flash it when needed, but the cash felt a little better for this.

James watched Q out of the corner of his eye as he snagged his wine and finished it off. Despite drinking half of a glass before the meal, Q had only drunk two glasses total. It was a strange amount to James, but he wasn't sure what kind of person Q was when he drank. The wine was paired perfectly with the meal that Q had chosen, so that spoke to something. It wasn't the option that was paired with it, but it worked better in James' mind.

"May I walk you back to your place?" James asked as he stood up. He pushed in his chair and walked around. He hesitated when he stopped at Q's chair, but Q nodded his head. James pulled out Q's chair as he stood up.

"You may walk me back to my place," Q said.

James found that Q didn't hold back his comments about things happening in the area that he didn't like. Unlike many, though, his observations were based on facts and population trends instead of what was considered by many to be the good of the people.

Q led him to the apartment that was above the sex shop, and while it was still a little weird, it was at least a nice looking place, at least what James could see from the foyer area of the flat.

"Not invited in for a nightcap?" James asked.

"Not tonight and maybe not for a while. You've wined and dined me, James, but you have a long way to go before I let you inside of my flat at this hour of the day. I have the next two days off work. Why don't we do lunch tomorrow?"

"Can I have your number?" James asked.

"Hmm, maybe tomorrow. Come here at ten, and we can head out. We will do what I want tomorrow."

"We did what you wanted tonight," James pointed out.

"And?" Q asked. He gave James an impish grin as he started to shut the door. James stopped him and held the door open.

"I don't even get a kiss?" James asked.

"Hmm. I guess you have earned at least that. Oh, and bring the Range Rover to pick me up tomorrow." Q darted forward and pressed a kiss to James' cheek and then got the door shut before James could stop him.

James laughed as he walked away, knowing that whatever cameras Q had in the hallway were watching him. He was glad that he had taken the tube to Soho. He needed to make a plan to deal with Q the next day.

* * *

James showed up before ten to Q's place. He parked in the lot that was for the residents and then headed down the street to get them both something to munch on and a drink. He had been paying attention to what Q ordered when at the tea shop. So it wasn't hard to get him what he would hopefully want.

Stopping at the Range Rover to drop off the pastries, James saw that Q was sitting on the hood of it with a tablet in his hand. He was tapping away at it and lost in his own world. Someone walked by James to head to their car, and as soon as they were within ten feet, Q's head turned to the side, and he watched them.

James was glad that he knew what was going on around him. He wondered if Q had something set up that was even showing him. He smiled at Q, but Q didn't react, so James headed toward him. He knew the moment that Q knew that he was close, and he turned his head just like he had with the other guy and smiled when he saw it was James.

"You are early, but also, you weren't here," Q said.

"I went to get nibbles." James handed over the cup of tea, and Q looked at it for a second like he wouldn't take a drink. "I didn't poison it."

"Which is what someone who would poison it would say. I was actually trying to decide if I wanted to taste a tea that was not to my liking."

"It's going to be perfect."'

"And what do you wager on that?" Q asked.

"The next five dates can all be picked by you if you don't like it."

"And what do you want if you are right?" Q asked.

"Your phone number and two kisses of my choice before the end of the day." James took a sip of his coffee and smiled as he tasted his one indulgence when it came to good coffee.

"Hmm. That's a high wager, but I'll take it." Q looked into the sipping hole and glared at the tea before he took a large sniff of it. His eyes widened, and he then glared at James. James grinned at him. Q took a sip, and he groaned in misery. James couldn't help but laugh at it. He held out his hand; Q groaned and handed over his phone. He unlocked it as he did, and James took his time finding the contacts app. He typed in his phone number, and despite the fact that all of the entries were in some kind of code, James put his name in. He figured that Q would change it later.

James texted himself and then snooped a little more. There were two people that he texted a lot, someone who was just called Bore and then one that was SH+JW. Under that was someone that was texted less but still frequent. JW+SH. James figured it was a couple of some kind. He looked at the numbers and decided to look them up. Tanner could get him information on whoever this set of people were. It seemed that Bore was someone who did something work-related with Q, so James wasn't going to worry about him.

"And the kisses?" Q asked.

"Those are at my discretion. I said before the end of the day."

"Hmm." Q looked a little disgruntled about it, but he didn't fight it.

"So, what are we doing?"

"We are heading out into the country for the day. There is a little place I love to go to."

"GPS?" James asked.

"I can program it into your GPS. So are we going?" Q slipped off the hood of the Range Rover and walked around to the passenger side.

"Yes." James watched as Q hesitated by the door, and he ticked a box for getting the younger man to like the attention of doing things for him. James walked around and opened the door so that Q could slip inside of the vehicle. He settled his cup of tea into the cup holder before he smiled at James.

"Thank you," Q said, and he leaned out and kissed James on the cheek.

"That doesn't count," James said.

"I know."

James shut the door and walked around the Range Rover to get into the driver's seat. Q was already working on getting the address into the GPS as James got the Rover started. He snagged the bag of pastries and waited for Q to look at him before he handed it over. Q opened it up and looked inside.

"Oh, road snacks. You got my favorites. Exactly how long have you been watching me?"

"On and off for about four weeks. I moved to my new flat then and was wandering around looking for a few things for it and saw you working. You’re handsome, and you looked so into what you were doing." James watched traffic as he got them out of town.

Q nattered on about the work he was doing in very, very general terms. It was enough that James understood that he was under stress and was high ranked but that he couldn't talk about what he did. It was a good way of taking care of it all, but he was dodging questions that got too personal.

"Sorry, I can't talk about that," was something that James heard several times over the two hours of travel once they hit the outer edge of the city. The area that Q was taking them to was beautiful.

There was a cottage there in the middle of the area that Q had them going to. It looked like the idyllic England countryside. Q had to unlock a gate to get them inside, but the area wasn't closed off once he did. Q locked it again by shutting it.

"How do we get out?" James asked.

"Unlocking it again," Q said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He gave James a grin, though.

"So, what are we doing here?"

"There is a lovely hiking area near here. I thought that we could do that."

James looked at Q and was a little worried about hiking with someone who had never hiked before. Yes, it was one thing they had talked about, but it wasn't like James needed to do it.

"Or we could just talk," James said.

"Worried about me, James?" Q asked.

"Not so much worried as I don't want to carry your ass back to civilization."

"Ah, my big strong protector. Don't worry. I can keep up."

Q had James park the Range Rover close to the cottage, and he let them into it. The inside of it was nice and looked well lived in, like a place that had been in someone's hands for a long time.

"Who owns this?" James asked.

"My family has for a long time. The land was given to them by a King or a Queen at some point. My eldest brother was more into the whole family history. When we were all of age, mother and father let us pick one of the family's houses to take as our own. I had no desire for the places in London, so I chose this one. They still come out on occasion, and we have staff that takes care of it."

James nodded his head. He turned to look around the place better. With a more discerning eye, he tried to find out hidden things, but there was nothing. He texted Angel the location of where they were and asked her to look into it. It seemed that his target was a little more connected than he thought.

"So, are we going hiking?" Q asked.

James looked him up and down. While his clothes were made for that kind of thing, his shoes were not. James could see a broken ankle in their future, though carrying him back and doting on him might just help along what he needed for the mission.

"Sure."

* * *

James considered himself to be in good shape. He had hiked for longer on worse terrain, but a month of not doing active missions meant he had gone a little soft. He looked at Q, who was standing on top of a boulder that he had to monkey climb to get on the top of. Whatever James had thought about him before this, he was thinking very differently now. It seemed that the gaps in where Q went on the weekends once to twice a month was found out. Angel had found nothing about this cottage's heritage other than it had belonged to Q's family for a long time. There were many blacked-out lines, and a few of them were on MI5's orders, so Angel didn't touch those. He didn't want to bring that down on him.

Q had gone from uni straight to MI6 after what M considered to be too many years being educated in things that didn't matter. James wondered if she really understood why he was as educated as he was.

"Okay, there?" Q asked as he looked down at James with a cocky grin on his face. The little shit knew that he was in better shape than James for this kind of stuff.

"Yes, I'm fine. I think that I need to step up my exercise again. Obviously, I am getting out of shape."

"Or you can come out with me more to do this. That will help you get better on it."

"I might take you up on that when my job allows."

"Good." Q settled onto the boulder and looked around again, smiling as he did. The sun came out from behind the clouds, and it landed on Q.

James looked at him as he looked up with his eyes closed like he was a cat enjoying the sun. James had to remind himself that this wasn't a date. It was a mission, and he needed to stay on target.

"So, what is in that bag?" James asked as he moved to head up the rocks to join Q. He found that the rocks were not well used to climb. Hell, he would have issues getting up this as a normal agent, but as a Double-Oh, it wasn't as horrible as it could be, and Q had gone up it like a goat.

James eyed the bag as he settled down beside Q. The bag had been in the kitchen, and while it was a sporty outdoor backpack, it didn't fit with anything that Q had. There had also been hiking boots in the living room area of the cottage. It was obvious that the bag had been packed by someone else. James had seen no one else on the property as they had moved around it.

"Lunch." Q pulled out a lunch box that, when opened up, had steam coming out of it. "The lady who keeps the cottage clean for me made up a lunch for us. Here, you can dish out the chicken."

James took the box and found that there was sliced chicken inside. It had a sauce on it that smelled heavenly. He was handed two plates and then a serving spoon next. James looked at the bag for a few seconds before he started to do as asked. Q pulled out two more containers that had hot food inside of them. One was jacket potatoes, and the other was a vegetable blend that smelled a little spiced. It was more high-end fare than James would have thought for lunch on the rocks while hiking, but then he had no idea what Q considered low-class food. For some, it was McDonald's, and for others, it was food under thirty dollars a plate. Obviously, if he and his two brothers were given places, his family had a good bit of money.

The food was good, better than a normal run of the mill cook would do.

"And what does she do when she is not out here taking care of this?"

"Oh, nothing really. She's a housewife whose children are old enough that they don't need her enough. Her husband indulges her on her whims and can't deny the results as her obsession with cooking and wanting to go to cooking training. She comes out here once a week for a day and cleans and relaxes where her spawn and husband are not. Today she came out and cooked this as well as stocked the fridge for dinner and breakfast."

"Really?" James asked.

"Yes, I don't want to go home tonight. You are staying in the guest room, and I hope you don't mind port or brandy. It's all that is stocked in here."

"I don't mind either of them. So you are kidnapping me for the day."

"Yes, I am. I hope you don't mind or have plans for a date with anyone else. I do get rather possessive of people." Q looked at James with a grin on his face before he pecked him on the cheek.

"That is not one of my two," James said.

"No, I don't figure that you would want to count it. I think I am looking forward to your kisses. My parents were never very affectionate. I have seen a few couples out in the wild as it were, but I roomed alone my freshman year at uni and then got my own flat after that as I couldn't take the other kids and their parties and thumped on the walls."

"I see." James wasn't sure what to think of that. He could see Q living with his books and his computers and not going out for normal people interaction. "You caught on quick about me."

"Ah, well, I had a little help. The barista said that you were watching me like you were sweet on me. My brusque manner didn't deter you, so I hoped she was correct. I was glad. I have been flirted with before and not known it, so I was confused when their motives were revealed."

"Did your brothers not date?"

"Oh, no. They are both married to their work. I think that my middle brother could have someone sit in his lap naked and wiggle, and he would critique their body. My eldest brother detests sex. He's asexual and very sex repulsed."

"And your middle one is not?"

"Well, I think that one has to actively have sexual thoughts in any capacity to know what your sexuality is. He jerked off, usually only when his needs were not met enough. So yes, on the asexual, but not sure about the thought on the sex part. He could be Demi for all I know and just never found someone."

"That does sound like something that would make it hard for you to understand what a relationship is like. I hope that I can show you."

"I hope so as well." Q smiled at James like he was the sun on a cloudy day.

* * *

"Please call me when you get home, James."

James played the message again. He couldn't figure out what was going on that had Q sounding like he was in tears while calling him. James closed out of his voicemail and dialed Angel before hitting the button to put her on speaker.

"Yes, James?"

"What happened at MI6?" James asked.

"Nothing. Literally nothing. There are two Double-Ohs out on missions, and neither of them has called in with an issue as far as I know. My information was updated two hours ago when Tanner called and asked how Q was doing without you around. Why?"

"I have a voicemail from four hours ago that has Q asking me to call him, and he sounded like he was crying."

"Oh, there is nothing that Tanner knows. Maybe it's personal? He's very tight-lipped about everything personal while at work. Tanner has staff that complains that he's a robot all the time. He must be good at compartmentalizing."

"Make sure that Tanner knows and that I might not let Q go into work tomorrow."

"I will. Things are going well, yes? You said last week before you left that you thought when you got back, sex would be on the table."

"Hmm, I do think so. Though I still haven't actually figured out if he's a virgin or not. That takes a very different way to go about things."

"Would a virgin be easier?"

"As far as getting to talk, probably. They tend to be a little more open after their first time. I could get him to spill a lot of secrets that way. He's never been in a relationship, though, so I have no clue. Most of my targets are in long-term relationships and usually more apt to understand what is going on. Still, they spill secrets." It left a sour taste in his mouth, but James was sticking with his job. There was no saving anything, no matter what James did. He would never betray MI6 like that, and while he liked Q a bit more than anyone he had ever been with outside of Vesper, he couldn't stop now. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

James took his time in packing a bag to go over and talk to Q. He had been home from work for about an hour at that point. He ensured that the condoms and lube were put up to where Q wouldn't accidentally see them. It was better that way. The drive over was not all that interesting, and James just wondered what was going on. He had debated calling but instead just chose to head over. It would be a little more romantic that way. James tried not to think about the horrible things that it could be.

Q answered the door with red-rimmed eyes. He looked shocked to see James. He didn't even say a single thing but instead walked over to where a laptop was set up, and his phone was lying there. He picked it up and looked at it before looking at James. He frowned as he tapped the screen a few times and then looked at James.

"You sounded like you needed a person more than a call on the phone. I didn't...overstep, did I?" James asked.

"No. Sorry. You must think I'm some ninny." Q wiped at his eyes before he laid his phone down.

"No, not a ninny. I mean, I can't really know until you tell me what is wrong."

"Just my brothers being assholes about things. They have no fucking emotions, and I missed my cat being put down."

"Your..." James looked, and he saw the pair of cats that he knew were Q's.

"Sorry. She's an old cat that didn't take well to the flat in town when I moved here, so she went back with my mother and father. She was old, nearly twenty, good and hearty, and she had a good life, but mother didn't want to bother me since she knew my job was a little stressful and I can't always get away. Anyway, today, my eldest brother had her ashes delivered to me at work. He didn't think that I would care to see her before she was put down, cancer, so it happened sooner for her own good. Mother assumed that I didn't call her, that I didn't care as that was what my brother told her. I tried not to get upset with my mother. I just..."

James nodded his head like he understood. He had never had pets unless one counted the snake he had tried to sneak into the house when he was five. His parents had not been happy, his mother doubly so, and it had been turned out by Kincade.

"You would have liked to have been there for it."

"She had to hate me for not being around. I would have held her while they did it." Q grabbed the back of the chair he was standing beside, and James couldn't help but move over to him. He wrapped his arms around Q and held him tightly as Q broke down. He wasn't sure what to do really. This was out of his realm of understanding. He had been like this once with Vesper, holding her in the shower while she tried to get her mind off the blood on her hands that wasn't blood she had spilled. This was vastly different.

James shuffled them over to the couch and sat down, pulling Q into his arms.

Q didn't fight it, which was a good thing, but Still, he acted so very differently from any way that James had ever seen him before. He could end this today, it seemed. Sex was a good way of getting things out of people and just having them emotionally compromised.

"So am I a ninny?" Q asked a while later.

James looked at the clock to see it had only been about fifteen minutes. Q wiped at his eyes and laughed a little when the tears still wouldn't stop.

"No, you are not. They made a decision without talking to you. Your cat can't hate you, though; she loved you. She might have been upset at you not being there, but she didn't hate you."

"Look at you and your sweet words," Q said.

James kissed Q's forehead and moved the man to where they were cuddling more than anything else. He laid back on the couch, pulling Q down with him. Q laid his hand over James' chest and sighed before he relaxed down into it. They laid like that for another half an hour as Q got himself under control again.

"Dinner?" James asked.

"Yes, but I don't want to let you go," Q said.

"Then why don't we order in? Chinese or Thai?"

"Thai, please." Q rattled off his order, and James made sure that he knew what he wanted as well before he pulled out his phone. He dialed the number, placed the order, and made sure that they knew the new address. James would have to make sure to correct them next time if he was ordering from his flat.

Q was reluctant to even let James up to go to the bathroom before the food got there.

Emotions were James' downside. He had learned a long time before to be able to mimic them, but this kind of grief, this kind of emotional attachment to an animal, was just beyond him. He could comfort, and he could console, but he couldn't understand how someone loved an animal like that.

Q let James up when the food got there; the doorman had let the delivery guy up, which wasn't a shock. The place had to see this guy a lot. James knew at least three other people that lived in the flats above the sex shop. There was a doorman, which James had not seen the first time there. He only marginally looked above someone who would shank you for money.

The TV was off, which was rare as the few times that James had been around Q, he liked to have the noise in the background. Yet, there was no TV. The two cats were staying away as they always did around James. James had never treated them badly, but they still stayed away.

James worried a little about what the cats thought about him transferring to Q. James wasn't mean to the cats, he tried to be nice to them, but it was hard when they wanted nothing to do with him.

"Why don't they like me?" James asked.

"They like no one. Even my co-worker who comes over to take care of them when I take long trips for work, they don't want anything to do with her. She bitches about every single time. Yet, nothing changes. They don't run. They have from my brother when he came for a visit."

"Which one?" James asked.

"The eldest. The youngest cares not for visiting me. Texting is enough for him. Though his flatmate is fun to talk to. He calls me weekly to bitch about him."

James nodded his head even though he was now sure of who the couple was in the phone and weren't an actual couple. That was his brother, so James wondered if Bore was the other brother.

"So what does your co-worker gripe about otherwise?" James asked.

"Idiots at work. We seem to have a lot of them. Sometimes, the people she meets. Her girlfriend. Though that one is something I've not been able to join in on. She thinks I'm making you up."

"Why?"

"Because she thinks that no one can be as good as you are, but we are both fully committed to work, and it's good. Though we haven't had a fight yet. That's something that I'm not looking forward to."

"What else has she said about us?" James asked.

"Well, she did make the weird comment that she hates the name James. Something about a man she worked with years ago that turned her sour to the name. I told her that she was pushing that mindset on you, and she said that she wasn't."

"What have you told her about me?"

"Just your first name. No one at work needs to know enough to be able to do anything to follow you. Though I am pleased to say that Bill at work thinks that you are made up just by the fact that you have not pressured me into sex yet, despite the number of dates we have been on." 

James nodded his head and wondered if Bill was Tanner. Bill was a fairly common name in the office, much to the chagrin of everyone there. M had been a little pissed when she had asked for Bill from HR to come up to her, and three had come up. He was pretty sure that this Bill and Tanner were the same, though. Tanner seemed to talk to Q a good bit, which as a department head, it was not out of the realm of reasonable. 

"There is nothing wrong with taking time to make sure that sex is something that one wants," James said.

"No, there isn't," Q said.

Eating the rest of dinner was a quiet affair with Q pressed into James' side. James wasn't sure that Q wasn't asleep at one point, and then he moved a little jerky like he had woken up. James was left on the couch while Q went to make them some tea. When he brought it back in, the cats were on the couch, on the cushion beside James and staring at him. 

"Looks like they are warming up to you. That's good. They are not the best judges of character outside of people that they hate. Which are my brothers. Even when the eldest calls, they hiss and leave the room. They know when I was texting my other brother. They take off running and then come back after I am done and cuddle me." 

"You've never said their names." James looked at the cats and hesitantly reached out with a hand and let them decide if they wanted to get closer for a sniff. The black one did.

"That's Mombi, and the other is Ozma."

James nodded his head as Ozma got up and moved over to butt Mombi out of the way before she sniffed at James and then moved to get all of the attention from him. She even crawled into his lap and settled there. He laughed a little as Mombi moved away to paw at Q, who was still standing at the edge of the couch. James looked to see that he had two cups of tea in his hands. James took one from him with a quiet thanks. Q settled onto the couch, pressed to James' side, and Mombi settled into his lap. James took a sip of the tea and found that it was something he had never had before that didn't taste too bad, but it was also laced with scotch. James looked at Q.

"I don't work tomorrow. Bill texted me to tell me to take the day since I don't take many and my vacation is piling up anyway. Seems that someone told them that I got a package at work, and looking at the footage, they could see that I was visibly shaken. I hate it."

"They care," James said.

"I don't give a shit that they care. I'm the boss. I know that they call me a robot, but I like that. It means that they can look to me in times of crisis and be calm."

"This wasn't a work crisis that you dealt with that turned sour. It was a package that they didn't know what was in it. They just know that it made you feel emotional. They know that you can feel them now, and when you hold steady during the next crisis, they will feel better about looking to you for that."

"You speak like you know." 

"My boss is much like that. She holds herself above it all, but I know that she's human and has her moments. I still look to her for that guiding steadiness when things go to shit."

Q nodded his head and took a sip of the tea. James waited for him to be done before he placed his on the table beside him, and then he took Q's from his hands as well. Q had a cross look on his face, but he let go. James carefully moved Ozma off his lap and then did the same with Mombi before drawing Q into his lap instead. James held Q there by a hand on the small of his back; they were in a more intimate position than they had been in before. Q smiled down at him before relaxing into the hold and letting his back slump to where they were not at such an uneven height anymore. 

James let Q come to him, let him think it was his idea to kiss James. It was all part of his bag of tricks for seduction. He pushed away from the thoughts of taking advantage of Q and just focused on finishing this mission. He missed being able to go out and do anything that he wanted between MI6 missions. He wanted to go back out into the field and take care of business. The little missions that he did were nowhere near as satisfying as his real job. It was enough to sate his hunger for action, at least, though. 

Q nosed at James' cheek for a few seconds before he brushed his lips over James'. James kept his free hand away from Q's body and scratched only slightly at Q's back like he was overtaken with the kiss's hesitance. He smiled when Q laughed when he pulled back. His eyes were wide, and James wondered if he was as untouched as James assumed he was. He knew that some of the people like Q, academic-minded, tended to push through most of their urges and just focused on school. Between that and the emotional neediness of his cat passing, James figured that he would be able to leave and never come back to his flat after they fucked. 

James gasped when Q's lips pressed to his more firmly. He guided Q into a good snog, letting Q know that it was his way and that James would not push him. Q seemed to revel in that. He settled down into James' lap a little more, hard cock pushing into James' stomach. James rocked up to show Q that he was hard as well. The only thing was that James wasn't sure that it was all a reaction to him just wanting to get this done. He felt a little more than he normally did when he took his marks to bed. He felt more than he did when he took the married women and men to bed and fucked them between missions. James had been tested after his last mission, and he knew that he was clean. Tanner had made it known that James was to do whatever he could to get Q to open up, and for first-timers, no condoms felt like something more than it was. 

"James," Q spoke as he pulled out of the kiss, panting as he stared at James.

"Should we move this elsewhere?" James asked.

"Yes, please. I'll put up the tea. The cats do like tea, and they don't need alcohol."

"I'll finish them off and put the cups up. You go to the bedroom."

Q nodded his head and slipped back off of James' lap. He ducked in for a new kiss that was more emotional than anything else. He had Q right where he wanted him. Q slipped out of the room on soft feet, and James picked up the mugs and down them both. James found that his had more of a kick than Q's, so that meant he hadn't ingested enough to make James feel a little bad for using Q like he was. 

When James finally had the cups taken care of and slipped into the bedroom, shutting the door, he found Q sitting on the bed, looking at James like he was sure of what was happening. It was more sure than James had ever seen him when it came to them spending time together. It seemed a little Dutch courage was just was Q needed. James crooked a finger, and he leaned back against the door. Q followed him like a little duckling, stepping into his space and allowing James to pull him close. James flipped them to where Q was pressed to the door and plastered himself to his front as they kissed again. 

The kissing was a means to an end to James, it always had been, but with Q, it felt new and fresh. James kept pushing that down as he worked Q up, little rutting against his cock and then a hand down his back to cup one arse cheek. He rocked into Q to get him worked up even more before he slowed down.

"Fuck, James." Q was panting like he had run a marathon, and James was glad of it. They were ready. 

It was time to end the mission.

* * *

James snagged his coffee cup that Q had made him and tried not to show that he was upset. There were two things that he was upset about. The first was that Q was tight-lipped post-coital. He was so tight-lipped about everything post-coital. He wouldn't even talk about previous experience. Which was what James was upset about as well. Q wasn't untested as James had thought. He was just unsure of himself. He had been a willing participant so much in bed that James had to think that he had fucked a lot in college, unlike the rest of the boffins that James had ever come across. Q's half-used bottle of lube and box of half-used condoms that were rather new based on the expiration date told James that Q had a few partners in the last while before he had met and started the game he was playing with James.

"Work?" Q asked when James checked his phone for the third time. It was silent; not even vibration happened so that no one could tell him if he was lying when he said he got a message.

"Yes. I need to go."

"Of course. Here." Q plucked James' cup from his hand and grabbed what looked like a travel mug out of the cabinet, and poured the coffee in; he topped it off and added James' touch of cream and a little sugar before he gave it a stir with the spoon he had used when making the cup the first time. He handed the mug over when he had snapped the lid on and pressed a kiss to James' lips. "Let me know when you are back in town. I'll make dinner if I'm not stuck at work."

"That sounds lovely," James said. He pulled Q closer again and kissed him like he meant it. Q surrendered but kept the kiss just on the side of not safe for the public.

"Something to help you come home quicker," Q said.

"You minx," James said even though he didn't feel it.

Q laughed and pulled back, smiling as he did. He looked happy, despite what had happened the day before.

James wasn't sure what to do with any of it, so he just kissed Q goodbye, grabbed his bag, and left. The drive to his flat took little time, but James wasn't sure that it actually took little time. He was lost in his head.

Angel was waiting on him with a grin on her face outside of his flat.

"How did it go?" Angel asked.

"He's pretty tight-lipped, but I'm going to try one more time on the whole sex thing before I call it. I know I can get him to break and spill something."

"Good on you, lover boy. I came over because the camera you planted caught something interesting, but I am unsure of what to make it. Sherlock Holmes broke into the building, but he never went inside any of the flats."

"Broke in?" James asked. He waved his hand. Angel handed over the laptop, and he hit play on the footage. He watched as the man broke in, walked around to all of the flats, put his ear to the door of three, and then left again. One of the ones he put his ear to was Q's.

"Anything left behind?"

"No, I did a sweep two hours ago. I knew you were still inside as I had not seen you leave. I wasn't sure what was going on with that, but I wanted to make sure that he wasn't trying to get audio of it."

"Alert his brother about him, through M. I'm sure that M will wonder why Holmes is interested in that place. The only good thing is that we know that Mycroft won't have a thing to do with it. He stays away from his brother's business unless it intrigues him."

Angel nodded her head and made a note.

"Q's cat died, and his brothers and mother did not tell him. They put her down because of cancer and then cremated her and sent the ashes to him. That's why he was upset. I guess the cat didn't like his flat, so she stayed with his parents. He didn't even know she was sick. I left telling him that I had work."

"Why? You could have milked that."

"I didn't have control of the situation. I need space."

"Are you falling for him? You know how stupid that is."

"He was emotional over a cat. I need to understand that before I can do more on it. Get me all the information I need on helping someone deal with the passing of a beloved pet and send it to my tablet. Then find me a job. Short, three days close to home."

"Yes, Sir." Angel took the laptop back and closed it with a snap before she headed away. James looked around and debated if he would head over for a little afternoon delight with a lady who was just a few blocks away. Her husband was always busy this time of year, and she could do with a few rounds on the mattress to help him pass the time.

James called first because it was the polite thing to do, and he was told to show up with vodka and cranberry juice and all day.

Angel did not find a mission for him, so he stayed with his lover for three days before he went to his place and showered before calling Q.

There had been no marks on his body; Angela was thankfully not a scratcher, just a screamer. Her husband had been gone for two days and would be gone a further two after James had left. It was perfect timing all around.

"James, back so soon?" Q asked.

"Just stepped out of the shower after getting back from the airport. Was just in Poland for a few days."

"That's lovely. I have today and tomorrow, as well as Monday off of work. I had something come up that I had to work through a night, so I'm being forced to take a day. Do you want to come over, and we can pass the time?"

James raised his eyebrows at that. After just one night in bed, Q was already that open to just having sex? James knew that he wasn't as unskilled as he thought, but it was still a thing that he was shocked about.

"Should I bring along diner?"

"No, I made pasta. I was going to have some tomorrow, but there is more than enough for both of us. I have crispy garlic bread as well."

"Sounds wonderful. How soon?"

"If you pack a bag and leave in a few minutes, it will be ready by the time you get here."

"See you soon," James said.

"Of course," Q answered back.

James packed a bag, more condoms, and lube in there as he planned on taking Q apart, making sure he was a boneless mess that he could break.

The drive was forever. James knew that he was at the end of mission mode. He was going to get it done over this little lover's weekend.

Q was at the door when James got out of the lift. He frowned when he saw that Q was smiling at him. It was soft and spoke of more than just affection. While it was the goal, lovers shared more with those they loved than random people, but it left a bad taste in James' mouth.

"You look a little worse for the wear; the job go south?" Q asked as he took James' bag from his shoulder without asking him.

"Something like that."

"You don't look too worse for the wear, at least. Come inside. I'm hungry."

Jame watched Q walk the bag to his bedroom and then head into the kitchen. James headed into the kitchen and smelled the food. Q had a few things he could cook and cook well, stuff he said got him through college in his small flat he got with the money for college. James wasn't sure how small he thought small was.

"Smells amazing," James said.

"Good."

James reached over and grabbed the bread plate to carry it into the dining area when Q laid his hand on his elbow.

"We are eating in here today. Mombi has taken over the table, and she will knock the food off if we take it out there."

"And you are letting her rule the roost?"

"She's lives here more than I do. I never saw the need to be mean when it comes to things like that. She never tries to claim any of my tech other than my laptop when I am done, and it's still warm."

"You love them," James said.

"They are the only family I have wanted to claim for years. I love my parents, but they are distant. I wasn't willing to be what they wanted. They wanted someone else like Myc, and it was horrible."

"Mike?" James asked. Michael seemed like such a pedestrian name after Q's real name.

"My eldest brother. Locke is the middle child."

"I see." He thought back to the whole SH & JW in the phone. Locke must be a nickname or something. James remembered a story about his brother learning to pick locks. That had to be where the nickname came from. Probably Mike as well. There was so much that wasn't making sense about anything. He really wished that he hadn't asked to be in the dark about his family. It worked well on James, no slipping up, but he knew nothing that he would normally like to know.

"My parents were horrible with names, theirs though were at least a little bit better. Even if Locke does like to break into places."

James nodded his head and then stopped. He thought about Holmes breaking into here. He thought about what the man would want with someone who lived here.

Alarms went off, and James looked around. The two cats took off running, and there was a chirp of a different alarm.

"Enemies in the building," Q said. He rushed out of the kitchen and grabbed his laptop, and came back in. He tapped a few things and then sighed. "Fucking hell. James, grab the breadbox, please."

James did, wondering what Q wanted to do with it. He looked at the screen of the laptop. It was a group of five very armed men heading toward them, and James had no weapons on him. He grabbed his cell, but it was showing no signal.

"They jammed the phones. Even my Internet isn't working, just the closed feed for my alarm system. Which will have tripped back to Six."

James nodded his head and then stopped. Q had never mentioned where he worked before. This was what it took? Someone invading the place? James figured that everything was going to be over soon. He could go back to work, and things would be fine.

"007, open the breadbox, please."

James did as he was told and opened it, seeing two different Walther PPKs inside. He picked them up, and they both beeped at him before three lights on the back glowed blue.

"Now only you and I will be able to fire them ever again. Well, unless I reprogram them."

James nodded. He thought about the few times guns had been taken from him and used against him. They had lost the last 009 to his own gun being used to kill him.

"How far away are they?" James asked.

"Two floors from what I can see. There are just five. There is no one else moving around. I sent the alert around the closed feed and made sure that no one is going to leave their flats. They have learned to obey me on all of that. They won't become cannon fodder."

James thought about what he needed to do to make sure that Q wasn't taken. He needed to get a hold of M, but that was out of the question with the phones being down. James had a half-formed plan in his head when it all fled when he realized that Q had called him 007. He turned to look at Q, who was typing on his laptop. Q seemed to realize that James was looking at him as he looked up, not stopping typing.

"Yes?" Q asked when James had said nothing after a few seconds.

"You knew," James said.

"Yes, I did. I knew exactly who you were. M did not do the best looking into your file that she should have. I knew exactly what was up as soon as you sat down across from me."

"How?" James asked.

"I did not figure that you would remember me as I was just an annoying child when you were a freshly minted agent. It was your first week at MI6, I think. You were on local duty since MI5 and MI6 were tasked with protection detail for a party. It wasn't anything special, I am sure to you, but to me, it was. Mother was sick, and my eldest brother was set to watch me, and he had to host a party for visiting dignitaries."

"Does..." James stopped as he tried to think back to that party. He kind of remembered it. He remembered that he was settled in to watch one of the doors and had caught a young boy of about eight sneaking in. He had slipped under the table so that he could watch. James had seen him rip a small hole in the table cloth and watch the whole party as it went on. The boy had been smart, and James had talked to him on and off the whole night. This was him? No, that would mean that Q's brothers were the Holmes brothers.

James felt like slapping himself in the face. Mike wasn't Mike; it was Myc and short for Mycroft. Locke was short for Sherlock. James felt like the biggest idiot. He would have known all of this if he had just actually read the information given to Angel. No, she would have told him.

"What's in your file on your brothers?" James asked.

"Well, that's the fun part. Nothing that's actually true and M forgot that. She forgot that my file is set up to protect Mycroft and Sherlock from someone coming after me. My last name on file is Holmes, yes, but it's not linked with my brothers. It was set up that way on purpose. Boothroyd had no living family, so he didn't have to worry about it. It was quite a thing, really. When I took over. I'm sure that M thought that Tanner was giving you all of my information as Tanner does have access to all of that."

"You knew."

"Yes, James, and we can talk about this later, but they are on the last set of stairs, and I have no clue if their masks will protect them from my first line of defense."

"First line of defense?" James asked.

Q just grinned. He bowed and then pressed a button. James walked over to look at the computer screen. The men were outside of the flat, and just as one was about to bust the door down, bars slipped out of the walls, trapping the men at the door.

The men were not taking it well, and they especially didn't when a hiss started up that even James could hear on this side of the door.

"Just knock out stuff. We shall see what they do."

The men started to hammer on the door, but it wasn't giving.

"Reinforced door?" James asked. He had shut that door before, and it wasn't that heavy.

"Yes, but not the whole door. It's kind of hollow in the middle, and a steel plate slides in from the door lock side and keeps it nice and secure. I retrofitted this place to meet my paranoid needs. It wasn't hard considering the price of the bidding at the time. I used the trust fund that I had left after my years in college. When one is as deep inside of MI5 and MI6 as I am, it's easy to hide things if I really wanted. I assumed it was why you were the one sent, and then I realized that your file wasn't on my servers at all. M had been planning this since before your last mission since before I took over. We had never crossed paths."

"You are too calm about all of this," James said.

"Nope, I took my anger out on something else, and then I realized that M doesn't know me. Doesn't know who I am, not really. I didn't want to get into MI6 on the merits of being a Holmes, so I fudged things. The name is there but not the connection. Then I did something stupid."

"What?"

"I'll tell you later. They are out cold. I have binding for them."

James looked at the laptop again and saw that Q was right. The men were knocked out cold, in a heap in the middle of the landing.

Q went to his working room and came out with handcuffs. James eyed them as he could see places for a charging unit and what looked like a micro USB port. High tech handcuffs were not something that James thought was a thing. It was Q, though, and every single Q before him did stupid things with items that did not need to have anything done to them.

"Do you think you can go outside and figure out what is going on with the phones? The receiver would be on the outside lines somewhere since the home phones are not working as well. The guns will work, and I have a comm unit. I was working on upgrading it." Q held out a hand, and there was a small unit there.

James snagged it and put it into his ear before he put the safety on both guns. He grabbed the cuffs next and opened the front door when Q released that system. After that, James bound the five men and made sure they were not going anywhere. He could smell the faint trace of lemon in the air. Probably something added to the knock out gas to make sure that Q would know if it had gone off.

It was the work of nothing to find the device and turn it off. James' phone started to ring almost immediately, but he ignored it as he saw Moneypenny headed toward him.

"Bond, what are you doing here?"

"Just admiring the view," James said. He looked up to see Q looking down at him. Q was at least smiling, and his smile turned a little brighter when James said what he did.

"James, M has spent the last hour trying to get a hold of you. You need to call her."

"I'm sure she'll be here soon. Let's head on up and check on Q, yes?" James asked

Moneypenny looked worried, but James really didn't care. He escorted Moneypenny and the team-up. The security agents checked in with Q before taking the five men out.

James watched as Mombi eyed Moneypenny, and when she walked up to Ozma to pet her, Mombi jumped in front of her. James laughed before walking over and picking up Mombi. He stayed right there, though, protecting Ozma so that Mombi would settle down.

"This is the boyfriend? Q, he's a womanizer," Moneypenny said.

"I'm well aware of what he is, Moneypenny. I am an adult, and I make my own choices. If you don't want to feel my wrath, I would shut up."

Moneypenny closed her mouth, and it looked like she had sucked on a lemon. James Settled in on the couch, and both of the cats settled on him. That made Moneypenny look even worse.

"What in bloody hell are you doing here?" M yelled at someone.

"I am here to check on my brother."

"You can have access to the rest of the building as soon as I am done, making sure that my Quartermaster hasn't killed one of my agents."

"I think not, M," the man said.

"Mycroft quit being an arse. M, please come up to my floor," Q said.

James looked to see that he was pressing a button down on a remote. Q walked over to sit down beside him with the laptop in hand. Ozma wiggled from James' lap to his, slipping into a small space. On the screen showed Mycroft Holmes and M having a staredown in front of the lift.

"Q, what is going on?" Moneypenny asked.

"You'll find out in a few minutes. Keep your shirt on."

M and Holmes entered the flat simultaneously, both of them looking pissed off and staring at James and Q.

"Quintavius, what is the meaning of this?" Holmes demanded.

"The meaning of what?"

"You have a Double-Oh agent on your couch holding one of your cats. Why are you in a relationship with him?"

"M?" Q asked.

"Quintavius is not...bloody hell. You are the third Holmes brother."

"Yes, Ma'am. My application to work here was under a false name, but it was approved by those above. We wanted to see what kind of information could get past."

"You knew the moment that I placed him in your path."

"Yes, Ma'am. Also, I knew him before that anyway."

"How?"

"You had me my first week at MI6 working with MI5 to secure a party for foreign dignitaries. Q was eight, and I was there. I entertained him under a table while he watched everyone. I told him who had guns and who was cheating on who," James said.

"What is going to happen now?" Moneypenny asked.

"Bond, leave. You are no longer needed."

"Oh, I think that I am. My boyfriend is needed. Someone tried to kill him or kidnap him. He's fragile," James said with a straight face.

"These kinds of relationships are not allowed," M said.

"Too bad. I guess you will have to choose," James said.

"Choose what?" M asked.

"Either have us both or neither," Q said.

"You would both quit?" M asked.

"Oh, dear, yes. MI5 would take me in a heartbeat and brag for years. I'd also get to keep James as a lover."

James swallowed. He wasn't sure that he would quit as he loved his job. He didn't love Q. Did he?

"Bond?" M asked.

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"Would you quit?" M asked.

"Yes," James said.

"Bloody hell. You did this!" M yelled at Holmes.

"Actually, I think that you did. I mean, you are the one that sent Bond to seduce me to see if I was loyal and would engage in pillow talk. He tried hard to get me to. I only learned that he had no clue who my family was when he didn't bring any of it up. I assumed you always just skirted the truth when talking to me, not wanting to bring up Mycroft. I know he's a thorn in your side as much as I hear him bitch about my boss."

M looked at Q and then at James. Back and forth a few times before she sighed.

"Fix your personnel record. Talk with Margie and make sure it's done tomorrow. Take today and get your shit straight. Bond, if you toe a single step out of line with him at work, I will have your bollocks for garters, and we shall see how he likes you then."

"I'm sure that I could make a toy that would get us both off," Q said.

James laughed, especially at the looks from everyone except for Mycroft.

"Get out of my sight," M said.

"M, you are in Q's flat. If you want them out of your sight, I would suggest leaving yourself." Mycroft actually looked like he wanted to laugh at that.

M looked at Mycroft with thinly veiled anger.

"I expect you both in my office tomorrow morning at seven."

"Of course, Ma'am," James said.

"You can leave too, Mycroft. They never even breached the flat."

"I can't check up on you?" Mycroft asked.

"You can fuck off. Lock, too. I see him or Watson around, I’ll leak the photos you thought you erased of the Prince."

"Quintavius," Mycroft warned.

"Then I guess you had better stay the hell away," Q said.

"I guess that I must. Will have to try and hack you again. See how far I get."

"Have fun. Moneypenny, please."

James wasn't sure what was really going on. The security team was finishing up their sweep of the place and followed Mycroft out the door.

"Q," Moneypenny said.

"I'm fine. James will watch over me. I'll be just fine."

"You trust him to watch over you?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Q's eyebrow did a weird thing, and Ozma jumped off of his lap. She hissed at Moneypenny as she skirted around her toward the kitchen. Mombi was right on her heels, hissing as well.

"I will take my leave. Lunch tomorrow?"

"Maybe. Depends on what else I need to do. Might watch James interrogate the idiots who tried to either kill or kidnap me as well. I'm sure that it will be fun."

"I thought you were joking about that," Moneypenny said.

"What?" Q asked.

"Watching 006 pistol whip a guy got you turned on. I thought it was some weird thing, but you meant it."

"Hmm, yes, it was good. I'm well aware that my sexual map inside of my brain is messed up. My two brothers are not better off than I am. Though I at least accept it. Mycroft thinks everything he wants sexually, even just having sex missionary with the lights off with a woman, is deviant. I look forward to running James' missions. It will be fun. Might enjoy listening to him fucking other people. I haven't figured out if that is a kink or not. I nearly sent a bug along when he went to visit one of his married women, but it was a breach of consent that I didn't like."

James tried to fit his head around what Q was saying. It shouldn't arouse him as much as it did. Q was standing there telling Moneypenny that he wanted to hear him fucking other people. At least once."

"I think that R was right that you and Bond deserve each other."

"Oh, is Bond who she was talking about?" Q asked.

Yes."

"Damn. I'll have to give her a gift basket. Anything else, Moneypenny?"

"No."

Moneypenny left, shutting the door as she went. James looked at Q and tried to read him.

"Well, that was a bit of fun. Sex?" Q asked.

"I never would have thought you were fully as you are."

"I am. I didn't use subterfuge with you, and despite what you thought, you weren't as much either. You were at the start, but you slowly stopped. We can date, we can fuck, we can do both."

"Both sounds good to me."

James wasn't sure what the hell was going to happen with work, but he could easily work off of what Q gave him. If they fizzled, they fizzled. Q didn't seem the type to throw a fit unless James was a beast about everything.

* * *

James slipped his key into the lock, hoping the two terrors kept their mouths shut as he opened the door. He was tired as hell but needed to drop off a few things before he came back to settle in. James laid the bag inside and then moved back to the elevator area to get the rest of the bags. He dropped them off inside before going back for the last item.

The cats now had their own room; it was full of toys and even had a tree that they could climb and play on. The room was small; it seemed like it used to be a walk-in closet or something like that; longer than it was wide, there was little else the room could be used for. Q had kept it full of items that he had in boxes, but James had been bored and sorted through most of them and got rid of things, with Q's okay, that he didn't want anymore. Sentimentality wasn't something that Q went in for, but out of sight, out of mind seemed to be the thing that Q did go for when it came to childhood items. 

James settled the bags into the guest room; he stopped and gave both of the cats a treat from where they were lying in their beds in their room. The bedroom door was shut, which was the only reason they were in bed. Q must have been needing sleep since he almost never shut the cats out when James wasn't home. When James was home, and they wanted sex, the door was always shut. James spent a few minutes giving the cats love for them, not making a single noise before he grabbed the last two items. He settled the carrier by the guest room door before heading into the kitchen. The first was a bag that he settled into the kitchen, pulling out the stuff needed from it and laying them out on the counters. Then there were the cartons into the fridge. 

A noise had James rushing out to see that somehow Mombi had gotten the carrier open, and she was now trotting off with a kitten in her mouth. Ozma came out of the carrier with the other in her mouth. They went to their room. James followed behind, really hoping that they didn't try and eat the kittens. He was ready to get his hands torn up to stop that, but all the cats did was settle the kittens down into their bed and curl around them. The cats were like a ying and yang around the kittens in the middle of the large bed that saw little use but was there for when the cats wanted to cuddle. 

"So you are just going ahead with that?" James asked, knowing the cats couldn't answer. He had been told to keep the kittens in the guest room overnight and let the other cats smell them through the door, but it seemed that the cats had a mind of their own on that. Which, given their owner, James wasn't that shocked on that. "Fine."

James walked into the guest room and got the two new cat pans to add to the ones around the house. Q had many, but James had been told to add in two to three new ones. He added another to the cat room since there was only one in there and then added the other to the guest room as there was none in there. In the morning, he would show all of the cats the pans, or Q would. James got everything set up, including the new dishes with water for the kittens and the dry kitten food. James knew that the cats wouldn't eat it as Q had told him the funny story of how they had never eaten it as kittens, and he had to give them adult food softened with kitten milk to get them to eat enough. 

For a few seconds, James debated shutting the door, but it would just make the older two make a racket. "I'm expecting you two to make sure those kittens don't go anywhere." There was a lot of places that kitten could get hidden around the flat. But he figured that even if they did get lost inside, the two older cats would help them find them. James wasn't too worried. There was nothing that would kill the kittens around. Q's work office was always shut up, and the cats didn't go in unless Q knew that he had everything cleaned up. 

James watched the two cats as they made the kittens settle down. The kittens had been given a small sedative when they had been checked out and the few cuts they had taken care of. James had found them in the middle of an explosion, and as soon as he had seen them, he knew he had to take them back to Q. He had scooped them up and put them somewhere safe and then finished his mission. After the mission was done, he had walked back to the point where he was being picked up with them in his jacket. The vet he had been directed to once he got toe MI6 had been more than willing, with a lot of money, to see James and the kittens. It wasn't until James said that he wasn't sure if James would keep him as a vet as his lover had his own that James learned that he was Q's vet and the paperwork on the kittens were attached to Q's file with James added on as well. Woozy and Pipt were the names James had given the vet, but he wasn't sure Q would want to keep the names. 

"I'm going to bed, and if they wreck anything, I'm blaming you two as bad babysitters," James said. 

Mombi stretched and glared at James before closing her eyes. James reached out to pet her, then the kittens, and finally Ozma. 

James checked over the flat and made sure that Q's security system was fully set up again before he headed into the bedroom. Q was asleep in the middle of the bed, something he only did when he was missing James, according to him. He was adorable with his hair a mess and his body covered up by blankets all the way up to his chin. James stripped and checked over his various cuts and bruises in the bathroom before heading back into the bedroom. He didn't need to start to bleed. He hadn't aggravated the wounds, though, and he looked like he would be fine until morning when Q would want to go over each wound and clean them himself before bandaging them again. 

"Welcome home," Q said as James slipped into the bed beside him.

"It's good to be home," James said.

"You smell like litter," Q said. There was just enough light from outside that James could see him wrinkle his nose. "I cleaned those before I went to bed."

"There was a minor spill, and I cleaned it up and filled up the bin," James said. 

"Lie," Q said. He closed his eyes again and scooted closer as James got fully under the covers. "You were out there longer than that. I heard the rustle of bags."

"Well, you will have to wait until morning to see what I did, Q. All good little Quartermasters need to be asleep."

"I am not good. Never been good. Chaotic neutral is more the term. I think that is what R called me two days ago."

"Really?" James tried to think of a better term, and there really wasn't a better one for Q. He loved where he lived, and therefore he protected it. He didn't need more money; he had more than enough of it, so he couldn't be bought, but if his loyalty was thrown into question and England did something to him, he would just move to someplace else and protect them. He didn't have the same kind of blood that bled England like James, but James slowly found that his home was right here, wherever Q was. 

"Kittens, James?" Q asked.

"What?" James asked.

Q reached a hand out and tapped the tablet at the bedside. James sighed as he forgot about the camera in the cat's room so that Q could watch them when he was working if he needed a bit of stress release. 

"They were blown up, or at least close enough to be injured a little. They are still under the sedative from getting taken care of so that they didn't hurt themselves more. Your cats catnapped them, by the way. Mombi got the cage open and plucked one of them out, and Ozma grabbed the second."

"She learned that when Ozma had a small surgery to remove a barb that had gotten too imbedded into her skin to just take it out. She was supposed to stay in the carrier, but Mombi got her out, and they were fine. Thankfully Mombi didn't let her run around. Mombi didn't even let her get up to eat and just brought her bits of food until she was sure she could move without hurting herself. Mombi, for all of her aloofness, is a rather motherly cat. She and Ozma are the same age, but one would never know it."

"The kittens are boys, but the doctor said that your girls are fixed, but he knows you'll get them fixed when they can be." 

"He's a good doctor. Covers most of the animals for those at MI6. Let's us pay him stupid amounts of money to be seen at any time of day." Q threw his arm over James' chest, pausing when he found the first bit of gauze. 

"It's fine. Barely hurts. You can look at them in the morning."

"Tell me about your cat rescue."

James knew that Q wanted a story to put him back to sleep. He also knew that Q was off for another few days after working nearly two weeks in a row with the start of James' mission before having to be handed off to another Double-Oh Agent that needed him more. Then he had been handed off again when that one finished. James made sure to keep his mission on parameter so that Q wouldn't be brought back in once he was released to cover James'. James had kept himself just fine, had even been well back from the explosion.

"Nothing big, the plant went up, and I found those two. It seemed that the rest of the litter and their mother were caught in it more. Or there was just the two and the mother. The mother hasn't been found, and there is word of how to get her or any other kittens to me if they are found in the wreckage. They are healthy and were well cared for before, so they had an attentive mother." 

"Good. What did you name them?" Q asked. He yawned right after speaking.

"Woozy and Pipt. I spent the flight home with them, looking up names. The cell service was shitty, even with the wi-fi of the plane, but it did well enough to get those names."

"Love the names." Q's body went limp. He had fallen asleep again.

James pulled the blankets up a little more and smiled before kissing the top of Q's head. This mission had turned out nothing like what he thought it was going to be. He hadn't been able to leave Q behind and had tried; Q had just waited for him to come back. It had been strange as hell to have someone to come home to, but he had five of them now, and he was going to make every single effort to always come home to them.

# The End

**Author's Note:**

> I write fanfiction for fun. It's a hobby and a stress relief. I refuse to stress over my writing. What you see is what you get. Errors, plot holes, and all. Thank you for reading my story! 
> 
> I can be found on MeWe [here](https://mewe.com/i/beccaqueen1), join me there and we can discuss my fics and whatnot


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